


the one with the flower crown

by nokomisfics



Series: the punk!phil pastel!dan 'verse [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dan Is A Cutie, FWB, Flower Crowns, Friends With Benefits, I Love Amy, M/M, Unoriginal Fic Titles Part One, also amy makes an appearance, pastel!dan, punk!phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 07:35:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4339640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokomisfics/pseuds/nokomisfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil likes tattoos and smoking and sneaking into pubs illegally, and Dan likes Phil. Amy’s just around because it’s fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the one with the flower crown

**Author's Note:**

> some images have been inserted into this fic for the purpose of visual aid [a habit that I have yet to fully embrace/discard]. for this purpose, i would recommend you read this in browser. the rest is up to you, my friend.

At two, Dan wakes up to a sharp rapping at his bedroom window. He pushes off his duvet, reaches for his phone to check the time, and then bites back a groan.He’d been working on an essay for his English midterms all evening, and had crawled into bed shortly before ten with the (misplaced) intention of getting his proper eight hours of sleep.

So much for that.

He slips out of bed and leaves the lights off, which turns out nonconsequential as he trips over his feet on the way to the window. Groaning out loud this time, Dan pulls back the curtains and pushes the window open.

Phil scrambles backwards and onto his own ledge just in time to avoid getting hit by the window.

“What do you want?” Dan hisses, sleepiness making him cranky. In the darkness of the inky sky and the cold wind blowing around them, he watches Phil’s face break into a smug grin.

“You,” he whispers in turn.

Fighting back a blush, Dan obediently crawls onto the ledge on his hands and legs and swings the window shut behind him, resting against it and rubbing his hands down his arms to warm himself up. “Why are you still awake?” he asks after a while.

Phil is wearing his oversized black hoodie over grey skinny jeans, his fringe messed up just enough to tell Dan he hadn’t been sleeping but he’d certainly tried. He’s had a late night, then. His long legs are bent at the knees and resting at the V where their respective ledges meet, and Dan extends his legs so that his bare feet rest next to Phil’s socked ones.

“Couldn’t sleep,” answers Phil.

Dan nods. “So you thought if you couldn’t sleep then I didn’t deserve to, either.”

That pulls a laugh out of Phil. It’s a gentle, cajoling laugh, contrasting with the snakebites in his lips and the remarkable dragon tattoo on the side of his neck, visible even now against his pale skin. Phil tips his head back at grins up at the sky. “The stars aren’t out tonight,” he observes quietly.

Dan, in turn, observes Phil quietly. “Have you been drinking?”

“Just a little bit,” he answers dismissively. “I’m not drunk.”

Dan nods again. “So.” He clears his throat, crosses his arms over his chest. “Why’d you wake me up, then?”

“Oh!” As if jolted awake by a startling thought, Phil reaches behind him and pushes his window open, picking up something resting against the pane. He hands it over to Dan, who squints down at the circular object in confusion.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a flower crown. Stole it from my sister.”

“ _Phil_.”

“Oh, come off it. She has plenty, and I wanted to see what it looks like on you.”

Blushing heavily at his last phrase, Dan takes the crown from him and studies it intently. The flowers are mainly pink and pastel blue, attached skillfully to a soft green vine. Dan has never worn a flower crown, but he’s always observed them from afar, secretly wanting but too shy to ask for one.

Now, he slips it onto his head slowly.

“Amazing,” Phil breathes out almost immediately.

Peeking at Phil from under his lashes, Dan tries to adjust his fringe and says, “Really?”

“Yeah, really. C’mere.”

Dan rolls his eyes at Phil’s demand but obliges nonetheless, crawling across his ledge and onto Phil’s and sitting cross-legged next to the boy. Phil is (always has been) ridiculously warm, even with the cold air of the night, and Dan subconsciously leans against him, trying to soak up some body heat.

“Always knew you’d look good in a flower crown,” Phil is saying, slipping his arm around Dan’s shoulders so that the boy can lean in easily. “I see you everyday in school in those fucking pastel shirts and skinny jeans,  _God_ , Dan. You’re just so fucking cute.”

Dan feels electrified, too conscious of the many points of contact between him and Phil: knees, shoulders, head. Beside him, Phil is a hot ball of energy, and Dan can’t help but soak him in, curl into him like a cat and smother a whimper at the back of his throat. He’s never going to get over how Phil, the same Phil who walks around town in his ripped jeans and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, gets into fights at pubs he shouldn’t legally be allowed into and has enough tattoos to put a biker to shame, how that very Phil is attracted to cute things like flower crowns and pastel colours and  _Dan_.

Presently, Phil leans down to press a kiss into Dan’s shoulder.

Dan doesn’t shiver at the feel of Phil’s day-old stubble brushing against his soft skin. He does  _not_.

“You think about me a lot,” he says.

“Yeah.” Phil doesn’t move away, whispering the word into the crevice between Dan’s neck and his collarbone. “All the time. It’s becoming a problem, because I don’t know how to explain to the lads how I take one look at you and I can barely stop myself from pressing you up against the nearest wall and kissing you till you’re  _wrecked_.”

Dan’s breath catches in his throat. He tries to imagine Nicholas - who has three piercings in his tongue and is feared by both students and teachers alike - understanding Phil’s irrational need for Dan. “Oh,” he mutters. And then, bravely: “Why don’t you, then?”

“Because,” Phil answers promptly, “You’re always surrounded by those  _people_ whom you consider - “

“No.” Dan pulls away, twisting around to look Phil in the eye. He’s aware of what he must look like right now, dishevelled and immature in his Donald Duck t-shirt and faded grey trackies, but he doesn’t care. And he’s hoping Phil doesn’t either. Heart in throat, he suggests timidly, “Why don’t you right now, I mean. There’s no one around to stop you.”

He waits as Phil studies him intently, and then watches a small smirk pulls at the corner of his lips. They lean in at the same time, and when Phil’s lips crush against his, it feels like it always has. Like kissing the sun, hot and warm and fierce, first Phil licks into his mouth and tastes him wholly, his lips searching, scorching, his snakebites rubbing against Dan’s lips teasingly. Dan hears himself groan, something low and guttural and unfamiliar,  because Phil pulls back to kiss down his neck and bite at the skin around his collarbone. Dan whimpers, tries to stop his hips from bucking upwards, already painfully hard.

Phil slips his fingers into Dan’s hair and tugs gently, licking over the mark he’s left on Dan’s skin. Dan gasps, his breath caught in his throat. Phil has no right -  _no fucking right_  - looking this hot all the bloody time.

“Phil,” he croaks out, his throat already dry. “Phil,  _god_ , wait.”

Phil pulls back, his fingers already skirting around the edge of Dan’s t-shirt. “What’s wrong, love?”

A shiver runs down Dan’s spine at the sound of his voice thick and low, but he forces himself to concentrate. “It’s late. And we’ve got school tomorrow.”

Phil’s fingers successfully slip under Dan’s t-shirt, and he runs his hands over Dan’s chest and pouts. “Do you really expect me to stop now, Dan? I haven’t had you like this in so long.”

Something twinges in Dan’s gut at his words, and he has to work hard to remind himself that this doesn’t mean anything. They’re childhood friends who fuck around sometimes, and in the light of day they skirt around each other in the hallways and abide to their respective social groups. And he refuses to let Phil’s sweet, sugar-coated words coax him into a blowjob or handjob or whatever Phil has in mind this time. Not at two in the goddamn morning.

Dan shakes his head resolutely, reaching up to peck Phil on his little button nose. “We both need our sleep. Even if only one of us intends on making it to school tomorrow.”

Phil sighs. “Come in and sleep with me, then. You know I find it easier to sleep when you’re around.”

Heart thudding in his chest, Dan nods almost imperceptibly, tells himself this is absolutely fine as long as he doesn’t read too much into it. He slips into Phil’s room behind the boy and pushes the window pane shut. Phil pulls back his duvet and crawls into his bed, curling on his side and waiting for Dan to crawl in, too. Then he pulls the sheet up to cover them both and lets Dan burrow into his chest, his body heat seeping out to envelope them in a little bubble of warmth.

+

Sometime next week, Amy Stroup marches up to Dan when he’s fetching books from his locker and declares, “The sexual tension between you and Bad Boy Lester.”

“Morning, Amy,” says Dan in reply.

Amy rolls her tiny green eyes. “ _Honestly_  now, there’s no denying it anymore. He’s looking at you like he wouldn’t mind eating you whole.”

Dan glances across the hallway on impulse, and surely enough, Phil’s leaning against the closed door of a classroom and eying him unabashedly, his eyes dark and his intention clear. Dan returns his gaze to small, pocket-sized Amy and tries not to grin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He watches Amy press her lips into a thin line, and then she starts down the hall, obviously expecting Dan to follow. He slams the locker shut behind him and obliges.

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” Amy asks when he catches up.

“There’s no deal,” answers Dan stiffly. From all of his friends, Amy’s the only one who knows he’s even remotely acquainted with Bad Boy Lester. “We’ve just been friends long enough for this to not be weird.”

“Yes.” Amy hesitates. “And what is ‘this’ exactly?”

“I don’t  _know_.” Dan is careful to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Can we move on from that? Because I want to ask you a thing.”

“You want to ask me a thing,” repeats Amy. She raises an eyebrow, nonplussed. “Does this have something to do with how you’re wearing a flipping flower crown?”

Dan smiles faintly, reaching up to nudge at the object in question. Since Phil gave it to him last week, he hasn’t really been motivated to take it off for too long. Sometimes when he’s under the covers and half-asleep, he can hear Phil’s voice saying  _god, Dan, you’re just so fucking cute_. And it’s all worth it.

They reach the English classroom and fall into two empty seats. “Not really,” Dan answers. He licks his lips, then pulls back the sleeves of his soft baby blue jumper to expose his wrists. He runs a finger over the pale skin there and says, “I’m thinking of getting tattoos.”

“Tattoos,” Amy deadpans. “On your wrists? Won’t that, like, kill you or something?”

“Nope,” answers Dan proudly. “I’ve done my research.  _And_  I’ve talked to mum, so I have parental consent, too.”

He can’t help the smug grin that sneaks onto his lips when Amy whistles, low and appreciative. “Nice. So you’re serious about this. When and where? And can I come watch?”

+

On Saturday, Dan’s mum drops him and Amy off at the same tattoo parlour where Phil got all of his tattoos. Dan’s printed out a picture of the design he wants inked onto his wrists for the rest of eternity, and when he hands it over to the tattoo artist - a dad-aged man with a goatee and friendly eyes - he rather expects the stern look he is provided with.

“Now,” says the artist, waving Dan towards a small black stool in front of a large mirror and smiling kindly at Amy. “I’ve spoken to your Mum and she seems to understand everything that getting a tattoo entails. But I need you to understand, too, that getting a tattoo is very much like purposefully wounding yourself. First off, it hurts like goddamn period cramps.”

Behind him, Amy - who’s perched herself on an identical black stool and is listening intently to the tattoo artist - widens her eyes and giggles.

Dan just nods and tries not to look like a bewildered four-year-old at his first dentist appointment.

“Like all wounds your tattoo can get infected,” continues the artist, washing his hands in a basin attached to the wall. “So it goes without saying that you’ll have to take very good care of it. Watch out for burning sensations or rashes or anything of the sort. Of course, I’ve never had a case of the sort in my parlor,” he adds with satisfaction. “But nonetheless. Better safe than sorry.”

“Yes, of course,” Dan says, feeling very mature all of a sudden. He listens patiently as the man carries on, outlining how Dan will have to be cautious and the symptoms he’ll have to look out for, and naming a few clinics he recommends in worst-case scenarios. When the artist fetches what is clearly the tattoo machine and pulls up a stool to sit in front of Dan, Amy crosses the room and rests her palm reproachfully on Dan’s shoulder.

She leans down and says into his ear, “Tell me why you’re doing this.”

“What?” Dan asks distractedly, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater when he is told to.

“Is it for Phil? Are you doing this to impress Phil?”

She sounds reasonably concerned, so Dan spares her a look of confusion. “No, obviously not.”

“Because it’s fine if you have a crush on him,” Amy carries on, and the pressure she’s applying on his shoulder increases. “You don’t need to, like, prove yourself to him or anything. You know that, right?”

“Wait,  _what_?” Dan is so stunned he withdraws his wrists from the artist, who’d begun rubbing them with a wet cloth. “I  _don’t_  have a crush on Bad Boy Lester,” denies Dan.

“Is there a problem?” enquires the artist with mild amusement, and Dan is briefly overtaken with the mad urge to shush him. He decides not to.

“Well, you’ve certainly been acting like it,” Amy points out smartly. She’s leaning against the dresser and looking all accomplished, her eyebrows pulled together and her lips hinting at a grin.

“I’m not - I’m  _not_!” claims Dan eloquently. Realising that he isn’t arguing his point well enough, he rushes to add, “ _Besides_. I’m not getting a tattoo to impress Phil. I’m getting a tattoo because I’ve always wanted one. You know that.”

“Really?” Amy full-out smirking now. “Because you’ve never mentioned having a tattoo before.  _And_  you’ve been acting weird ever since you showed up wearing that flower crown. To  _school_.”

The tattoo artist snorts. Dan glares at him. “Kid,” the man says gruffly, “I don’t know what’s going on, but you do realise tattoos are  _permanent_. You best be getting these for the right reasons.” He reaches for Dan’s wrists again, and Dan lets him wipe them down in a daze.

“I don’t have a crush on Phil Lester,” repeats Dan faintly.

“You don’t,” Amy repeats, and then she’s leaning down to press her lips to Dan’s cheek, and he can’t help but smile at that. She smells like grass and something soft. “You’re sure about this, are you?”

“I’m sure about this. The tattoo,” Dan clarifies, just in case. “I’m sure about the tattoo.”

“What about Phil?” she persists. The artists cocks his head to the side at her words, apparently interested in Dan’s answer, too.

“I’m sure about the tattoo,” Dan reiterates with a sense of finality in his voice.

When the needle first digs gently into the soft skin of his left wrist, Amy engages him in a conversation about this year’s spring play, and he humours her because he’d rather not be left alone with his thoughts.

Not right now.

+

  


 

+

It looks beautiful.

He can’t stop staring at it, and it’s already been three days. The redness around the black ink has long since faded. It’s like he’s a little kid again and it’s a week before Christmas, and he keeps darting to the living room to look at all the pretty gifts resting underneath the tree. Every two minutes Dan pulls back the sleeves of his jumper to check if the planets on his wrists are still there, and every single time it’s exhilarating.

Monday night, he pushes away from his desk earlier than usual and pops out of his room to tell his parents he’s about to go to bed so that they won’t think to check up on him. Then he switches off the lights and takes his duvet and a novel with him out of the window and onto the tiled ledge.

The lights in Phil’s room are still off, so Dan figures he hasn’t returned from his nightly pub crawl. He tucks his feet against his chest and wraps the duvet around him, and then rests his book on top of his knees and turns to the page where he left off.

Soon enough, a cloud drifts over the moon and blocks out his only source of light, so he leans against his window pane and stares up at the starless sky. He wonders if Phil might come back soon, and imagines showing him his tattoos. Will he be excited or concerned? Dan tries picturing Phil’s face, the snakebite piercings in his plump bottom lip and the dragon tattoo on the side of his neck. He’s never seen any of Phil’s other tattoos, although the boy has always alluded to having more.

In his head, when Dan shows Phil his tattooed wrists, Phil smiles and laughs in surprised delight. He takes Dan’s wrists in his hands and studies the pattern closely, and then he calls Dan a dork in the most affectionate voice ever. He says something about how Dan can make even something as jarring as a  _tattoo_  come across as cute, and  _shit_.

Shit.

Dan has a crush on Phil.

His stomach flips over, and his heart does this weird sort of tap dance in his chest, and he swears out loud. Repeatedly, loudly. He dips his head under his duvet and shuts his eyes, his arms tightening around his knees.

Shit, no.  _No_.

It’s suddenly very cold, and there’s a brick in Dan’s abdomen. He can’t think straight, he can’t think past Phil’s voice and his lips and his collarbones and the smile that he always seems to reserve only for Dan.

He’s so fucking  _fucked_.

Just then, Phil’s room floods with light and through the curtain he can make out Phil’s silhouette as he stumbles in. Dan shuffles backwards reflexively, although he can’t physically distance himself from Phil any more without toppling into his own room. He licks his dry lips and clears his throat, trying to calm his racing heart.

It’s fine. It’s  _fine_. He’ll just call Phil out, and show him his tattoos and have him coo over them for a bit, and then he’ll retreat to the safe confines of his room and deal with this new development  _on his own_.

“Phil,” he says, loud enough to be heard. Pushing himself forward, he taps at Phil’s window and says again, “Phil.”

Then the window is pulled open, and Phil’s standing there, face pleasantly flushed and eyes dark. Drunk.

Dan’s stomach swoops. “Hey, I wanted to show you something,” he says, reaching around to disentangle himself from his duvet.

“Not now, Dan,” Phil says. There’s something new in his voice that makes Dan look up, and then he watches Phil smirk at him, his blue eyes twinkling with mirth.

“Are you tired?” tries Dan again. “This’ll only take a moment, I promise.” He extends his arms and pulls his sleeves down, and waits for Phil’s eyes to land on them, waits for an exclamation, a gasp, anything.

Instead, he hears another voice. Deeper, thicker. “Hey, what’s going on?” it says from somewhere behind Phil. “Are you gonna get me off or what?”

Dan jerks backwards, his blood running cold. The sudden movement almost causes him to slide down the ledge but he catches himself just in time. “Oh,” he stutters out, unable to look away from Phil.

Phil raises his eyebrows. “Yeah. Not now, alright? I’ll talk to you tomorrow, or something. Catch some sleep.”

“Yeah,” echoes Dan, reaching behind him to push his window open. He grabs his duvet in one hand and his novel in the other, and then spares one last glance at Phil. His heart is beating wildly, and every cell in his body is telling him not to cry, but his tear ducts seem to have a mind of their own. “G’night,” he says. Pulling his sleeves down, he feels very small and very stupid as he crawls back into his room.

And if not much later Dan bites into his pillow and tells himself repeatedly not to scream, well. That’s a different matter entirely.

+

Amy tries getting it out of him the next day in school. She knows something’s up, presumably because he’s left the flower crown at home for the first time in  _weeks_  and over his whitest pair of skinny jeans he’s donned his blackest jumper, whose sleeves he hasn’t pulled up all morning.

Small, sweet Amy. She doesn’t mean any harm but he snaps at her anyway, and immediately feels guilty about it. She’s reproachful, but keeps her distance. Before the end of the day, however, she attacks him with a hug from behind and peppers his cheeks with kisses, and he complains about her lip gloss but hugs her back, thinking for the umpteenth time that he really doesn’t deserve a friend like Amy.

Dan isn’t too surprised when, late that night, Phil begins tapping incessantly on his window. He turns around in bed and stares at the source of the noise, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and still too tired to get out of bed.

He doesn’t have to bother, though, because Phil pulls the window open and lands on his bedroom floor with a soft thump.

Clearing his throat and pushing himself up to lean against the headboard, Dan says, “Hey.”

“Hi.” Phil shuts the window behind him and runs a hand through his hair, messing up his usually perfect fringe. “May I?”

Dan knows he really shouldn’t nod his head and roll over to make place for Phil, but he does anyway. The fatigue that had settled in his bones sometime in the evening hasn’t quite left yet and past the voice in his head repeating  _I hate Phil, I hate Phil_  like a broken record, there’s a bigger part of him that’s finally acknowledged his crush on the boy, and how he can do nothing to help it.

“Sorry for wakin’ you,” Phil says. When he jumps into Dan’s bed and pulls the covers up to his chin, Dan catches the whiff of whiskey intermingled with sweat and warmth.

“You’ve been drinking.”

“Yeah.” Phil turns on his side to grin at him. “‘M proper drunk.”

“Are you still wearing your trainers?”

“I came with bare feet, I promise.” Under the duvet, Phil presses his warm foot against Dan’s leg to prove his point. Reflexively, Dan moves away, turning on his back and trying to distance himself from Phil. Which is virtually impossible given how they’re on the same  _bed_.

They lie in silence for a long moment. Dan is left to ponder how they always this, sleep in each other’s beds when they can’t get sleep in their own, and settle around each other like the old friends that they are. And it really,  _really_  shouldn’t hurt this much to know Phil fucks other boys. No, not other boys, because Phil has never fucked Dan. Not that Dan  _wants_  that or anything. He isn’t gay. He just has a crush on Phil, who is a boy.

Right. Okay.

“D _aaaaan_ ,” Phil is singing softly under his breath. “Dan. Dan. Dan.” He’s poking at Dan’s arm now.

“What? I’m awake, stop poking me.”

“Never,” says Phil and smiles with his tongue poking out. “You’ve been weird all day. What’s up?”

“I haven’t been weird all day.” But even he can make out the defensive streak in his voice. At Phil’s raised eyebrows he insists, “I  _haven’t_.”

“Yeah, well. I know you’re hiding something on your wrists.”

“What?” Dan laughs in confusion. “How d’you know that?”

“I noticed yesterday. You wouldn’t stop fidgeting with your sleeves.” Phil hesitates. “Cute jumper, by the way. Green is a nice colour on you.”

Dan blinks at him, at his blue eyes earnest in the darkness. “Okay,” says Dan faintly, extending his arms towards Phil. “Look at my wrists.”

Evidently taken aback, Phil looks down obediently. Dan can spot the exact second it clicks, because Phil’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open and he takes Dan’s wrists in his palms almost reverently. “You have tattoos,” Phil breathes out.

“Yeah.” Dan can’t help the shy grin on his face. He burrows into the bed and relishes the feel of Phil’s warm palms around his hands. “Got them on Saturday.” When Phil ducks down to brush his lips lightly against the planets on one wrist, Dan squirms. “Hey, stop. That tickles.”

Phil snorts derisively. “I don’t care,” he says, doing the same for the other wrist. “You have tattoos.  _Dan_.”

“I noticed,” deadpans Dan, but he understands Phil’s excitement. He still can’t believe it himself, and he’s waited for this moment for so long. “Do you like them?”

“They’re so…” Phil trails off, looking up at Dan and blinking. “They’re very you.”

Dan bites into his bottom lip. “Yeah?”

Phil hums, prying Dan’s fist open and pressing his lips onto the inside of his palm. His snake bites brush roughly there, and Dan sucks in a breath. “You’re already so cute,” Phil says. “So pretty.” Another kiss, back of Dan’s hand. “And now you’ve got fucking  _tattoos_. God. I’ll have to fight the boys away now.”

“The boys?” Something twists in Dan’s stomach, and he begins to pull away. “What?”

“Nicholas, for starters, has a thing for pretty boys with tattoos.” Phil raises his eyes to meet Dan’s. “But then again, so do I.”

When Phil leans in to kiss him, Dan lets him. In fact, he positively melts into his chest and wraps his arms around Phil’s neck, touching his dragon tattoo lightly and pulling him closer. Phil is kissing him with intent, open-mouthed and wet and so, so hot. He tastes like intoxication, thick and heavy, and Dan drags in a ragged breath and drops his hands to Phil’s chest, grabbing at his t-shirt. He groans when Phil snakes his arms around his waist and pulls them close enough for their hips to brush, and then Phil’s fingers creep under Dan’s t-shirt to scratch at his back softly, and -

And Dan pulls back.

“Stop,” he says breathily, his hands still holding on to Phil. When Phil just proceeds to suck a hickey into Dan’s neck, he repeats defiantly, “Stop. Phil, I’m serious. Stop.”

Dan feels hot and cold all over when Phil pulls away.  He’s blinking back tears and he really, really doesn’t want to do this.

“What’s wrong?” asks Phil, real concern lacing his voice.

Dan shakes his head. “We should stop this.” His voice is barely a hoarse whisper.

“Stop what?” Phil’s arms are still around his waist, and with them he gives him a little tug. “It’s all just a bit of fun, Dan.”

“I know.” Dan swallows thickly. “And that’s why I think we should stop.” He looks at Phil imploringly.  _Please get it_ , he thinks at him.  _Please don’t make me say it_.

When Phil gets it, something behind his eyes shuts down. “Oh,” he intones hollowly, withdrawing his arms from Dan’s waist.

Dan rolls onto his back and doesn’t say anything.

“Should I - ?”

Dan just shrugs.

After a very, very long pause, Phil pushes the duvet down and climbs out of Dan’s bed. His actions aren’t sluggish anymore, and Dan revels in the fact that what he’s just told Phil has made him mildly soberish. He doesn’t move a muscle as Phil goes the same way he came, and only breathes again when the window pane is shut firmly behind him.

Tomorrow he’ll get rid of the flower crown, he thinks.

Tomorrow, he’ll start all over.

+

He doesn’t sleep all night, and when he shows up at school the next day, Amy pulls him into a hug wordlessly.

“He’s a knob,” Dan says into her shoulder. She just nods, rubs a hand into his hair and doesn’t comment on the absence of the crown.

At night, he takes his novel and duvet onto the ledge again. The light in Phil’s room flickers off not long after that, and the slam of his bedroom door tells Dan he’s headed out. Probably to get wasted, to bring home another guy who’s willing to suck him off. Dan’s stomach turns, and he falls asleep on the ledge, freezing over in the cold night air.

+

A week passes. It feels both like a year and a moment. And Dan has both won and lost.

(He’s beginning to regret the tattoos. He won’t tell Amy, though. And his mum is fascinated with them, so she remains in the dark too.)

It’s been a week, and he still hasn’t destroyed the flower crown. Every time he comes close to flinging it into the rubbish bin, a pool of guilt floods his chest, thick as molten lead. Eventually, come Wednesday evening, he walks over to Phil’s house. To his luck, his sister pulls open the door.

“Here,” he says, extending the object towards her. “I saw it in the bushes and thought it might belong to you.”

“Thanks,” she says reservedly. She’s short, can’t be more than eleven years of age and Dan has never met her before. But she’s eying Dan like she’s heard of him.  _God_ , thinks Dan.  _Please let that not be true_.

She twists her finger around a long strand of ginger hair and says, “What did you do to my brother?”

“Brother?” Dan blurts out. “What, Phil? I didn’t know you had a brother.”

She rolls her eyes, which are wide and blue and very Phil-esque. “I know about you, alright? So you can stop lying. You’re very bad at it.”

“Thanks,” Dan responds tightly. “Why don’t you ask your brother, then, if you’re so curious?”

“He won’t talk to me.” Something pulls at the end of her mouth, and it looks a bit like worry. “He hasn’t said a word to us in a  _week_. It’s a bit strange, and I figured you’d know what’s wrong with him.”

Dan feels sick and dizzy. “Is he alright?” he asks, trying to keep the concern in his voice to a reasonable amount. “Have you been checking on him?”

“He isn’t going to off himself, I reckon.” She shrugs it off, but Dan can still sense the worry in her tone and the way she’s holding herself.

“Don’t think about it too much,” he says eventually. “Phil’s big, he can take care of himself.”

She snorts loudly. “ _I’ll_  say.”

Dan’s about to ask her what she means, but she’s stepping away and swinging the door shut, so he walks home instead and tries to listen to his own words, for once.

+

Phil is walking towards him.

It’s the next day, and Amy is telling him about the part she acquired in the spring musical. They’re leaning against his locker, and Dan isn’t paying attention to small, sweet Amy anymore, but he knows she’ll understand.

Because over her shoulder he can see Phil walking towards him, and there’s something dark and possessive on his face.

And he’s holding the bloody flower crown in his hands.

“I don’t know karate,” says Dan, breaking into the conversation loudly.

Amy frowns up at him. “What?”

“Remember that time we were walking to yours, and these guys began wolf-whistling at you, and I told them I know karate so that they’d go away?” Dan says quickly.

“Yeah, and they didn’t leave until I flipped them off and began screeching like a bird.”

“Right. Yes, well, the point is I lied.”

Amy looks mildly amused. “Is he behind me? Is he looking at you again? Is Phil staring at you like he wants to eat you whole?”

“More like, pummel me into the ground.” Phil’s closer. Phil’s almost here.

“Oh my  _god_ , Dan. Is he walking over?”

“I don’t know, do you have the ambulance on speed-dial?”

And then Phil’s here, and Amy turns around and leaves. Honestly,  _fuck_  Amy.

“Hey,” says Phil. He has an impassive look on his face. The entire hallway stops to stare at them.

“Hi,” says Dan in reply, clutching his books closer to his chest and feeling rather pathetic about everything. All the hate that he’s accumulated towards Phil over the past week disintegrates in a second, and he looks longingly at Phil’s bright eyes and full, red lips. He’s missed this boy. He’s missed the fucking daylights out of him.

“Hi,” Phil repeats, crowding Dan against his locker so that the boy has to look up at him.

Dan bites into his bottom lip.

“Got something of yours,” continues Phil. And then he’s settling the flower crown onto Dan’s head and looking all satisfied with himself.

“So you talked to your sister?” asks Dan lightly. “She’s worried for you. You’ve got no business worrying your sister like that.”

“She had it coming,” Phil shoots back.

“She thought you were going to off yourself.”

“I enjoy proving people wrong.”

“Go away,” Dan says half-heartedly, not meaning it one bit.

Phil pretends to consider it for a moment. “Nah,” he says eventually.

Dan grins. Dan should  _not_  be grinning right now. “Everyone’s looking.” Technically this is untrue. Contrary to popular belief, not  _everyone_  stops and stares when Bad Boy Lester approaches ordinary folk like Dan. But a select few are looking over, and on the other side of the hall Dan can see Amy positively vibrating with excitement. Dan decides that he hates Amy.

“Yeah,” answers Phil, and his eyes are laughing at Dan.

“What are we doing?”

“I really want to kiss you.”

The words are like a ice cubes slipping down Dan’s spine.

“And more,” Phil rushes in, looking antsy for the first time in his whole life, probably. “I want to fuck you - “ (Dan blushes and looks away) “ - and do all the kinky shit I’m sure you’re into. But I want to wake up next to you too, and buy you jumpers. And get matching tattoos, probably. If that’s fine with you. And kiss your tattoos but also every other inch of your body.”

Dan returns his eyes to Phil, and reels at the earnestness on Phil’s face.

“I’m sorry for not realising it before, and fucking other guys because I was too stupid to realise that. That, um.”

Something is blooming in Dan’s chest. It’s big and warm and unfamiliar. It’s comforting. It’s like nothing Dan has ever felt before, and it’s consuming him, because he wants this. He wants this so,  _so_  much.

“That I like you, maybe.” Then Phil rests his forehead against Dan’s and lets out a very long breath.

“You like me, maybe,” repeats Dan.

And Phil. Well, fuck him. Phil smiles, and his tongue pokes out of his mouth,  _Christ_. “You’re just really fucking cute, okay?”

Dan’s surprised into a chuckle. “Am I?”

Phil just bumps their noses together in response.

“Say that again.”

“What, that whole thing? For fuck’s sake, I thought you’d’ve caught it all the first time round.”

“No.” Dan shakes his head, smiling cheekily. “The thing you said before the whole… thing. The very first thing you said. Say it again.”

Phil looks exasperated.

“What are we doing?” asks Dan, hoping to jog his memory.

Phil smiles slowly at that. “You’re a fucking dork,” he whispers, and then recites just like he did before, “I really want to kiss you.”

“Yeah.” Pushing onto his toes so that they’re at the same height, Dan says quietly, “Go on, then.”

And somewhere far, far away, Amy begins to cackle.

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> writers are inherently vain creatures. drop me a review, feed my egotistical self! (seriously though, tell me what you think of my fics please)
> 
> in other news, [my tumblr!](http://oopsiwritefanficdonttellmum.tumblr.com)


End file.
